I Do All Of It And Enjoy None Of It

By the time everybody sits down you are finished.

Not tired in the way people are tired at the end of a good day. Finished. You have been going since about six, and the thing you have been building has finally arrived, and you are the only person at that table who cannot enjoy it because you are still running it.

You will get up eleven times. You are tracking what is still in the oven, who has not got a drink, whether the quiet one is all right, and how long before somebody needs to be driven somewhere. And somebody will say that it was lovely, and mean it entirely, and you will agree.

And here is the part you have not said out loud, possibly ever: you are not sure you were there.

Before we go on, one thing, because this is where this subject usually goes wrong and where it stops being useful.

This is not an article about your family. I am not going to build a case about what they should notice or how the work should be shared. If this turned into that, you would finish it angrier than you started and nothing about next year would change, and the anger would take more out of you than the cooking does.

This is about you, and one specific thing you are allowed to do.

Thou wilt surely wear away

There is a scene where a man watches his son in law working from morning until evening and says something very blunt to him.

Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone. (Exodus 18:18, King James Version)

Thou wilt surely wear away.

Jethro is watching Moses do necessary work. Nobody in that scene suggests the work does not matter or that the people do not need it. It is real work, it is being done well, and the man doing it is the right man to be doing it.

And the observation is not about the work. It is about what the work is doing to the man.

Wear away is a physical picture. Erosion. Something being reduced slowly by constant use, so gradually that the person it is happening to would be the last to notice.

And then the diagnosis: this thing is too heavy for thee. Not too heavy in general, and no comment on his character or his willingness. Too heavy for one person, which is a statement about arithmetic rather than about strength.

Nobody tells him to try harder or to have a better attitude about the load.

You are being worn away by something too heavy for one person, and it has never once been a comment on your strength. Exodus 18:18 names the wearing away as the problem rather than the work, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets somebody hear that without it sounding like an accusation against anybody.

The thing nobody asked for

Here is the practical part, and it is smaller than sharing the load.

There is at least one thing you do every year that nobody has asked for.

Every household has several. The extra thing that is made because it was always made. The bit that takes two hours and gets eaten in nine minutes. The arrangement that nobody would notice was missing, that you would not dream of skipping, and that exists now mainly because it existed before.

And you cannot see which ones they are while you are in the middle of doing them, because they all feel equally load bearing in October. The way to find one is to ask a different question: which of these, if it simply did not happen, would nobody mention?

There is usually one obvious answer and you already know what it is. You thought of it while reading this.

That is the one.

You are able to find the thing nobody asked for, and it has never once been holding the day together. The written word calls the load too heavy for one and does not require the work to be worthless for that to be true, and the Spirit of God is the one who lets a person see their own list from the outside.

Do not do it this year

So here is the assignment.

Choose one thing you always do, and do not do it this year.

One. Not a reorganization of the whole day, not a conversation about fairness, and not a request to anybody. Just quietly take one thing off, on your own authority, without announcing it.

Not announcing it matters. The moment it becomes I am not doing this any more, it is a statement about the family, and somebody will react to the statement rather than the thing, and you will end up defending a decision instead of resting.

Take it off, and see what happens.

What almost always happens is nothing. Nobody mentions it. And that discovery is worth more than the two hours, because it tells you something true about how much of what you carry was ever required.

Exodus 18:18 names a load as too heavy without blaming the one carrying it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is with somebody quietly putting one thing down.

You are able to take one thing off on your own authority, and it has never once needed anybody's permission to be allowed. Exodus 18:18 calls the arrangement unsustainable rather than the person inadequate, and the Spirit of God is the one who is present when a person makes a smaller day on purpose.